


Recombination

by Whreflections



Series: Recombination verse [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Blood, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Murder Husbands, Post-Season/Series 03, Referenced Past Bedelia/Hannibal, Referenced Past Will/Molly and Will/OFC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 14:55:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5168030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over the years, they've shattered a lot of teacups.  Will doesn't want to set this one up to break.  </p><p>(or, in which Will takes a walk when he knows he's too angry to be rational, and Hannibal is essentially a dog with separation anxiety)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recombination

**Author's Note:**

> ...I am always vaguely terrified writing for a new fandom, but this one?
> 
> Dear God, everyone around here is so fucking amazing the thought of joining in on that kind of made me want to just whimper and curl up in the corner lmao I think I'm glad I didn't, but we'll see how that pans out, XD 
> 
> On a more semi serious note, I have no idea why I started here, other than that this was a moment that just kept popping into my head and poking at me. I don't know if I'll do anything else with this particular verse, but I might? I kind of like the dynamic they have going here I think, but I've also got another idea I've been considering and...idk. I'll see how this goes, first :) 
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing this; I hope it came out okay ^^

Every light in the house was on.  Will wasn’t sure what exactly he’d expected, but it was strange how the sight dragged his stomach down only to pull it back up.  Their house on the outskirts of Temuco was nothing like his metaphorical boat on the sea back in Wolf Trap, nothing like the literal boat they’d lived on during the first leg of their trip south.  He didn’t feel safer outside of it than in it, and he certainly hadn’t felt the need to light it up like a beacon to guide himself back.  When he left, everything had been dark.  He hadn’t even taken his cell phone, had barely bothered to pull on his boots.  Seeing the house now with his eyes adjusted to the dim silver of moonlight, the abundance of light was searing. 

Will bypassed the front door in favor of heading back to the French doors that led into the kitchen, carefully shifted the dog he carried to one arm before reaching a tentative hand out to test the handle.  Unsurprisingly, despite the fact that he’d left the house locked up tight, it was open.  Will maneuvered his way inside with the door cracked as slightly as possible, yanked the dog under his arm a little higher against his chest as Freya and Ivy ran to whirl eagerly around his legs, leaping with feet obediently tucked to their chests, necks stretched out to sniff the new arrival without actually, properly jumping on him.  It was endearing and under different circumstances they’d have gotten a little sliver of sausage each for their progress, but Will’s eyes had barely skimmed over them. 

Hannibal sat at the island in a soft grey sweater, still wearing pajama pants beneath it.  Somehow, the fact that he hadn’t bothered to get dressed cut deeper than the rounding of his shoulders, the way his hands clenched around the mug held between them.  Will couldn’t bring himself to look at his face. 

Instead, he walked the short distance to the bathroom just inside the hall, fished under the sink until he pulled out one of the bowls he’d stashed there.  As soon as he’d settled water and dog on the floor, he headed back to the kitchen to find that Hannibal hadn’t moved but the dogs certainly had.  Filled with excitement about the newcomer, Ivy dashed behind him to press her nose to the gap at the bottom of the bathroom door, sniffing incessantly.  Freya was sprawled out on the large bed just at the edge of the kitchen, the vantage point the girls were allowed to use if they wanted to pant and wag and watch Hannibal cook.  As close as she looked to sleep already, it seemed likely that before Will came in, she’d already been laying there for quite some time. 

A glance at the stove told him the time was 2:39, but that told him little given he hadn’t paid any attention what time it was when he left.  Midnight, maybe.  Maybe earlier.  In the silence, he could feel the line that tied him to Hannibal knotted up with tension, curled like cable around his wrists.  He bypassed the island for the fridge, pulled a glass out of the cabinet and poured himself some water. 

“You said you were coming to bed.”

He’d waited just long enough to speak that Will’s mouth was full when he did.  He wasn’t startled, exactly, but his throat seized around trying to swallow and wanting to answer, and he ended up coughing, turned to set the glass down on the island to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.  “I did.  I was.” 

“The implication as I understood it didn’t involve a three hour disappearance.”  His words were clipped, but Will had heard far worse.  This wasn’t simmering rage, just badly concealed hurt. 

Rage would have been a little less nauseating.  Will reached for his water again, drank until he’d drained half the glass.  It was cold, and that was the best he could say for it.  His throat still felt dry, almost raw.  His stomach still twisted.  “That wasn’t planned.”  

“And your change in plans was so immediate you couldn’t stop long enough to tell me you were leaving the house?” 

“Am I under house arrest?”  As soon as he’d snapped the words out, he felt as childish as he sounded.  He sighed, head bowed as he leaned hard against the island.  As hot as his insides felt, everything external was freezing.  He hadn’t worn his gloves; his hands were so cold even the marble felt almost warm. 

“You know you aren’t.  I didn’t bring you here as a captive; you’re free to go whenever you like.”

“Free is relative; all actions have consequences.  It’s not like I can just waltz out the door.”  In this case, there was the at least vaguely possible consequence of having his throat slit.  He hadn’t given much thought to what Hannibal might do if he left this place—kill him, follow him, drug him and drag him back home.  The options were irrelevant; he had no intentions of leaving, now or ever.  He’d made his choice coughing up saltwater on a gritty beach, Hannibal’s hand pressed hard between his shoulders. 

“You could, if you wanted to.  Do you?”  There was no tremble to hear, nothing anyone else would have caught, but Will felt the shake of it down to his bones.  The weight that pressed on his shoulders was enough to buckle his knees.  He dropped forward until his forearms pressed against the countertop, looked up ready to meet Hannibal’s gaze only to find it wasn’t there.  His head was turned, eyes down like a man expecting a blow he wouldn’t block. 

If Will was honest, it wasn’t the beach that had done it.  He’d made his choice long before that, before the cliff, before the van.  Longer than he had ever wanted to let himself admit.  His fingers twitched against the counter.  “I couldn’t, and I don’t.” 

“Would you tell me if you did?”

“Yes.”  At this point he would, honestly, but it wasn’t an option he’d ever need to face.  He was far more certain of that than he was that Hannibal would have been willing to let him go.  Years ago, he’d have been more bothered by that discrepancy.  “Were you ever going to tell me that Freddy Lounds has Molly believing it’s a miracle I didn’t kill her in her sleep?” 

The soft sound that left Hannibal’s throat was more acknowledgement than answer, his fingers unfurling to rest loosely around the mug Will still had yet to see him drink from.  “No.  I wasn’t.  There seemed little point, but if you’d like to discuss it I might first point out it’s not quite fair to put all the blame on Ms. Lounds when you insisted on leaving her such fuel for her fires.”  

The sudden burn in Will’s chest was hot, anger and lust and a strange little lick of shame at his utter lack of it.  He hadn’t needed the pictures she’d taken to remember the night at Bedelia’s, but seeing them on the computer screen had certainly tugged it to his mind, made him look with the stark clarity of an observer.  The table, still set, most of the leg remaining at its center.  Bedelia’s body on the bed, eyes gouged out, the fork she’d tried to use on Hannibal impaled snugly into her tongue, protruding from her open mouth.  The cuts in her torso were not surgical, unmistakably so even at a glance.  The bloody handprints on the wall outside her room—his left, and Hannibal’s, side by side, a spot further down where blood smeared as their fingers had tangled.  If Will had been reading the crime scene for Jack, he’d have been able to hear echoes of the way Hannibal had moaned as Will fucked him, a little high with need, ragged with rapture.  The night had taken a turn even he hadn’t entirely anticipated; he’d never planned to leave such a bold declaration. 

That was Will’s design. 

Will pushed away from the counter, rubbed the heel of his hand hard between his eyes.  “Bedelia had been goading me since I found her in Florence, holding it over my head that she’d had part of you I hadn’t.  I wanted to lay that argument to rest.” 

“If your message was solely for Dr. Du Maurier, it would have been more effective to present all of it before you slashed her eyes and cut her open.  She can’t have heard much before she lost consciousness.” 

Will’s huff of laughter was short, conceding.  Once, such a frank description of his own actions might have made him shy away, but not now.  He had moved past hiding from simple truths; he knew what he was, and what he wasn’t.  He held no remorse for what he’d done to Bedelia, and none for what they’d done together after.  The first part was just, the second…

A natural progression, a claim he had to stake.  An act of God. 

He’d hardly noticed it, but he’d paced closer to Hannibal.  Only a short stretch of marble separated them now; he could have easily reached out and taken his hand.  Will’s fingers curled against the counter’s edge.  “She wasn’t allowed to see.  She’d already seen more than she could appreciate.”

“She certainly couldn’t appreciate the scene you left behind; you can’t argue that it was all for her benefit.” 

“No, most of it was for _our_ benefit; just because I had plans for what we left behind—“

“For Jack?”

“For all of them!”  In the venom that came as he spit the words out, Will felt the subtle lift of release.  It had been there all along, of course, but he hadn’t given it full rein even inside his head.  “Alana still thinks you have some… _mystical_ control over me, that I take one look at you and I’m not myself.  It’s literally never occurred to her to think that everything you brought out in me was already there, that I’m more myself with you than I’ve ever been.  Jack still thinks he broke me; it’s like they’re all pathologically incapable of looking at me without goddamn rose colored glasses.”

“So you remove the glasses for them.  Force clarity.”  Hannibal still wasn’t properly looking at him, at least not at any moment Will was looking back, but there was something soothing in his proximity. 

“Yeah.  Yeah, something like that.”  The admission came heavy off his tongue, but he couldn’t deny the truth of it.  Clarity was exactly what he’d been shooting for.  If he was leaving never to return, he meant for them to see him before he did, just the once.  If Will’s wildest hopes held, they’d have a run of luck to beat the devil and never see the FBI or anyone associated with it again.

“Then was Molly not another intended recipient of your message, either consciously or subconsciously?  Her connection to you puts her in the middle of any initial investigation; you had to know word would reach her.  You had to know what it would do.” 

“I knew she’d know about us, yes, but that doesn’t mean I wanted my wife to think—“  His mind caught up to his mouth just slow enough to fail him, quick enough to make him choke.  “I just meant—“

“Exactly what you said; you chose your words precisely.  She is still your wife, technically, and—“

Will moved while he was talking, rounded the corner to interrupt by getting a fistful of Hannibal’s sweater and tugging hard to try and make him turn.  He didn’t move, but he did go dangerously still.  His fist in Hannibal’s sweater only tightened—of all the emotions he’d felt towards Hannibal over the years, fear had never been one of them.

“Hannibal.” 

“If you’d thought her reaction all the way through to its logical conclusion, you wouldn’t have missed it,” he said, cool and smooth, like Will wasn’t latched onto him.  “From her angle, it’s not reasonable to expect she see nuances of behavior.  You brutally murdered a woman in cold blood after eating her leg; you’re engaging in a sexual relationship with a serial killer.  What else is she to see in you but a dangerous man she never knew?”

Put like that, Will could see the logic.  Deep down he’d probably had it all along, but even though it was this exact problem that had driven him out walking, he didn’t really feel like talking about Molly or Freddy Lounds or the holes in his designs anymore. 

“ _Hannibal_.”  Will swallowed thickly, let go of his grip on the sweater to press his palm to Hannibal’s neck instead.  He’d meant to grab, to use force, but his fingers moved with a mind of their own, their spread gentle, low.  His thumb stroked against the dip in Hannibal’s collarbone.  “I’m here, with you.  I’m not just ‘engaging in a sexual relationship with a serial killer’.  I’d have come here with you without that.  I _did_ leave with you without it.  Technically and legally she’s still my wife, yes, but that doesn’t matter—it wouldn’t matter even if she never ended it, but you know she will.  I know you want me to say I felt nothing for her but I can’t; I’m sorry.  I did, and I hate knowing that she thinks there was ever a chance I might have hurt her, but that doesn’t change the fact that leaving with you was a choice, and I made it.  I don’t regret it.  I don’t regret anything we’ve done since.” 

Hannibal turned so smoothly it happened in the blink of an eye, a shift on his seat to bring him sideways, facing Will.  Unsurprisingly, his hand went first to the bloodied patch on Will’s sleeve, toying with damp fabric between his fingers.  In all likelihood, he’d been tracking that wound and guessing at it from the back of his mind from the minute Will walked in. 

“You’re hurt.”

“It’s nothing; Tommy bit me a couple times.  I don’t think he can see.  Shadows, maybe, but—“

Distracted as he was in glancing down at his own arm, the sharp little prick of pain as Hannibal’s thumb came up to drag across the split in his lip startled him.  For the first time since he’d come in, their eyes met.  He couldn’t be sure what Hannibal saw in his, but the sheer sharp hunger in Hannibal’s made him ache.  Will’s breath hitched, and Hannibal rubbed a little harder, again when the cut reopened under the stretch. 

“I assume our new charge isn’t responsible for this.”  As punctuation, Hannibal crooked his finger far enough to slip into Will’s mouth.  Will’s tongue flicked forward on instinct, lapped the faint glaze of blood from the pad of Hannibal’s thumb.  It was beautiful, so fucking beautiful the way he could actually see Hannibal’s eyes go black with want. 

Will gathered his thoughts, and answered.  “No.  That’s from the guy I found harassing him.  He was drunk off his ass; he threw a bottle at him.  I was already pissed and—“  Will’s hand on Hannibal shifted, fell a little further to rub lightly at his chest over soft wool.  “—it was barely even a fight.  He threw a couple punches, and I knocked him out.”  Beyond the cut on his lip, there was only a bruise somewhere on his back from where he’d hit the corner of a dumpster, soon to turn purple and yellow over his spine.  When Hannibal found it in bed he would press his fingers into it, feel out its edges in the dark by the cadence of Will’s breath and suck his own mark where it ended like a dog pissing higher than the last on a fencepost.  When he’d finished, he’d soothe both with the lap of his tongue until Will squirmed under his ministrations, hot strokes turning to kisses before he let Will pull that mouth back to his own.  Hannibal’s cycle, in miniature- pain delivered, and pain relieved.

Hannibal stopped teasing at the wound.  Will wondered if his disappointment showed.  “You showed impressive restraint—I know you’ve feared you’d struggle with that, once you allowed yourself to kill regularly.”

“I don’t think it’s reason for anyone to be too impressed; I wanted to catch the dog.”  A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, stretched wide enough to make his scar twinge when he caught a flash of amusement in Hannibal’s eyes.  “Hey, as many dogs as I wanted, that’s what you said to me.  Don’t tell me you’re regretting it already.” 

“Merely doing some calculations.  As you said, I gave you my word, but I did read a supposedly conservative estimate that postulated Chile is home to over two million street dogs.  At some point, it may become a question of square footage.”  The touch of humor in Hannibal’s voice was too light, brushed into place with what must have been considerable effort, but it made Will laugh even so. 

The urge to kiss him was powerful, and Will didn’t fight it.  He folded forward, arms wrapping around Hannibal’s neck as he dipped his head to follow through.  Hannibal didn’t meet him halfway, didn’t move at all until Will was on him, licking his way insistently into his mouth.  His stillness broke rather forcefully then, his hands rough and hot when they took hold of Will’s waist beneath his shirt.  His teeth closed sharp over the split in Will’s lip, deliberately widening it before he sucked hard, drawing Will’s blood out onto his tongue.  Will moaned, let slip a shorter, deeper sound when he felt Hannibal shudder in response. 

By the time they broke apart, Hannibal had worried his lip to the point of bleeding freely enough to trickle down.  Hannibal caught the line with a quick stroke of his tongue, repeated the motion with a little more deliberation when Will’s hand clutched at the nape of his neck.  It would be easy, to get that eager tongue on his cock.  Hannibal would go to his knees for him in a heartbeat; he’d learned that, over the last few months.  The thought alone was enough to have him half hard, though pinning down the primary source of that arousal would have been trickier.  Hannibal’s mouth was glorious, but the heady rush that came from knowing Hannibal was _his_ ….

That was a power even killing couldn’t reach, and one he didn’t want to abuse.  The first time Hannibal had given him a rare gift, he’d let it slip through his fingers.  He wasn’t about to do that again.  He could appreciate, revel, even, but he couldn’t let himself take this for granted.  It was too hard won. 

Will shifted his angle, tilted his head to brush a kiss against the line of Hannibal’s jaw.  “I need to get cleaned up so we can go to bed.” 

Hannibal’s hands flexed, drifted lower until his thumbs were rubbing firm just above the band of Will’s jeans.  “I’ll join you.”

He’d fully expected that, and still it made him smile, lips curving against Hannibal’s skin.  “I have to deal with the dog first, Hannibal.  He’s a mess.”  Hannibal’s disapproval was palpable, thick as a wave in the air between them.  Will squeezed lightly against his neck to mediate it, let his forehead rest against Hannibal’s.  “It won’t take too long; I don’t want to stress him too much.  I just need to be sure there’s nothing wrong that can’t wait until I take him to the vet on Monday.” 

“Very well.  I’ll wait.”  His voice was stiff with uncertainty.  Will longed to knead it smooth. 

“You could wait for me in bed, get my side warm.  I’m freezing.”  His right hand had warmed against Hannibal’s neck but the left had been tangled in his sweater and he slipped it beneath the collar for emphasis, his chilled fingers eager to leech warmth from Hannibal’s back. 

Hannibal’s hands rose to cradle his face, sure in their hold but careful, free of force.  He kissed Will’s forehead with painful tenderness and lingered there, his breath warm against Will’s skin.  There was no approval in his silence, but there was acquiescence.  He would go upstairs because Will asked it, lie there with the stillness of coiled tension and listen with eyes open to the sounds of water running in the bathroom downstairs, dog nails in the bathtub, Will turning on the shower for himself.  A trust exercise without the trust. 

The barest whisper of Hannibal’s name was the only answer Will could give. 

*****

Even when they’d been at their worst, Hannibal had always tended his physical wounds with gentle hands that would have seemed jarring to anyone whose lens of Hannibal was narrowed to the Ripper’s profile.  From Will’s perspective, the piece wasn’t so incongruous—Hannibal never touched him without intimacy, certainly not in healing, not even in violence.  Even as rushed and poorly considered as the saw had been, he hadn’t done it with distance. 

That intimacy had been his only trace of comfort when Hannibal carved into him and it entranced him still, his arm almost limp in Hannibal’s grip as he wrapped Will’s bites in gauze.  This silence was far easier than any of them had been in the kitchen, easy to lose himself in. 

Perhaps because of that rather than in spite of it, Will felt compelled to break it. 

“You thought I left.”  A statement, not a question.  On that much at least, Will had no doubts.  It was too clear, too present in the way Hannibal had turned his head, the way he’d gripped at Will when he’d kissed him like grappling with a mirage.  He’d handled Will far more roughly on occasion, but he hadn’t touched him exactly like _that_ since the boat. 

“You did.”  He said it simply, no hesitation, no pause in his hands.  His fingers were busy securing the end of Will’s bandage. 

“I went for a walk because I needed to; you thought I _left_.” 

“I considered it.” 

“And?”

“I hadn’t decided.  For the time being, it seemed best to wait, so I made tea.”  And cut on every single light in the goddamn house.  It seemed a kindness not to mention that, though, so Will let it slide. 

“You didn’t drink it.”

“No.”  Finished wrapping, Hannibal’s hand lingered, hovering close enough over the bites Will could feel the heat of his palm even through the gauze.  Will could feel him thinking too hard, put a stop to it by taking Hannibal’s hand in his. 

“I thought I’d come to bed as soon as I finished the fly I was working on, but I couldn’t remember the exact feather pattern I had in mind and I knew it wasn’t in the book I had out ,so—“  Will shrugged, unsure if he should make a separate apology here for intrusiveness.  Like everything else in the house the computer was _theirs_ after all, or so Hannibal had said.  Will just had yet to use it, until tonight.  “—I thought I’d google it rather than look for the right book, but as soon as I turned the screen on I saw the Tattle Crime window at the bottom.  I couldn’t resist checking once I’d seen it and…”  And no further explanation he could give would matter, really.  His anger had burned out for the time being, maybe for good, on this issue.  Thinking about it brought a dull, tired sort of pain, but he could sweep it aside.  “I was furious, at first.  At Freddy, at myself, at Molly for believing her.”

“And at me.”  Hannibal’s voice was smooth as silk, an easy declaration he didn’t seem troubled by, but Will was already shaking his head.

“No.  Not at you.  Like you said, those were my plans.  You’d have done it differently.  I can’t blame you for compliance.”

“You could blame me for participation.”

“I have a lot of feelings about your participation that night, Hannibal, and none of them involve blame.”  Most of them, in fact, hovered on a spectrum from desperate fondness to consuming love.  His only irritation with Hannibal on that occasion had come from the way he’d touched Bedelia as he carried her from the dinner table to the bedroom for Will to do his work.  There was too much familiarity in it, too strong a reminder that those arms already knew her weight, her shape against his body.  Will had been eager, before that.  After, his bloodlust had reached a fever pitch past what he’d felt towards Dolarhyde.  He fell on her with the fury of wildfire, and it would have made sense for Hannibal to feel the need to give him space, to be wary of Will in the thick of such a haze.  Instead, he held the memory of the drag of Hannibal’s hand down his spine, like petting a hound with prey in its mouth.  The praise Hannibal gave him dripped with heat, his accent thick, breath already erratic when he leaned in to mouth with barely restrained hunger at Will’s neck. 

He had only to look at Hannibal’s face to be certain he wasn’t the only one remembering—his eyes were wide and bright, close enough to hope to hurt, his lips parted around shallow breath.  Will looked down at Hannibal’s hand in his, the space where their knees almost touched, the soft blue of the veins in Hannibal’s wrist just above the line of his scar.  He twisted the hand he held to let him see a little more clearly, let the fingers of his right trace feather light over those delicate strands.  If he’d pressed harder, he probably could have felt Hannibal’s pulse rise. 

“I knew I should have told you I was going out, but I didn’t want to take that frame of mind into this room; I didn’t want to see you while I was like that.  The temptation to take it out on you would have been too great.”  He wasn’t proud of that thought, or of any that had led him to being so certain of it, but it was true.  He’d learned to be more honest about himself, lately, and he meant to do that across the board—if he was going to be honest about the parts of himself he’d started to embrace, he had to realize there would still be parts that left a bitter taste in his mouth.  The at least theoretical potential he knew was within him to have come in here and picked a fight or roughed Hannibal up without a word, that was a piece of himself he could have done without ever finding. 

“You could have; I wouldn’t mind.  I’d have preferred it.”  The earnest calm in his voice drove the barb of Will’s own regret quite a bit deeper. 

“Well I wouldn’t have.”  He’d started too sharp, too abrupt.  Will drew the hand that had been tracing absently at the edge of the old slash below Hannibal’s wrist up to pinch at the bridge of his nose.  It never seemed to stave off the ache in his head the way he hoped it would.  “That’s not what I want this to be.  There’s no question of whether or not we’ll hurt each other; all couples do, and—“  For all the seriousness he had for this subject, he couldn’t help the slight twist of a rueful smile.  “—I have a feeling we’ll do it spectacularly, but I’m going to avoid it as often as I can.  I don’t want to let myself get in a habit of seeking it out because that’s not—“  Not healthy, not at all, but they in their very essence were arguably nowhere near healthy to begin with.  Will squeezed at Hannibal’s fingers, swallowed heavily as he looked up to catch his eyes.  “That’s not how I want this to be.  Things are different, now.  I don’t want to hurt you just because I can.” 

The silence stretched.  Hannibal’s free hand came to rest against Will’s knee, smoothing at a crease in the fabric as if he’d only just noticed it.  “You needn’t be so careful with me.  You should be well aware by now there is nothing you could possibly do to me or around me that would drive me away.” 

“Did I say I was worried about driving you away?” 

Hannibal’s tilt of concession to his point was slight, but it was there. 

“I know how wide my parameters are where you’re concerned, but there’s a difference in…in knowing I can’t lose you through conventional means and abuse of power.”  Before Hannibal could protest, Will reached up reflexively to cover his mouth, pressed harder at the faint sound of indignance.  “I’ve done it to you before, but I have a greater appreciation for what you’ve given me, now.  I won’t do it again.”  There were still chasms full of mistakes he might make instead, but he could at least be sure that this new teacup of theirs didn’t shatter in any old ways.  He could put their failures to use.  He could adapt. 

The pressure of his fingers against Hannibal’s lips withdrew, but before he could pull away entirely Hannibal had caught his arm.  He nuzzled into his palm with closed eyes, twined their fingers.  His kiss at the heel of Will’s palm was soft, his teeth blunted by care as he took the fine skin of Will’s wrist between them and held it there.  Those teeth had ripped out a man’s throat; it’d be nothing for them to rip through such thin skin.  He could spill Will’s blood with a twist of his head, give himself more than even he could eagerly lap up. 

Sometimes, Will felt his love for this impossible man was too great a thing to contain within his skin.  It was constantly spiraling outwards, ever growing, threatening to break constraints of flesh and bone and consume them both.  Will tugged on his arm, on Hannibal by extension.  His bite held, though the pull was only slight.  Will’s fingers curled until his nails grazed Hannibal’s cheek.  Between his legs, his cock hung a little heavier. 

“Hannibal,”  He matched a verbal request to his physical one, tried again to lead with the drift of his arm.  “Come here.” 

He let go with a stroke of his tongue over the bloodless indentations he’d left, unfolded with grace only he could manage.  His body covered Will’s completely when he wanted it to, and he enveloped Will like that then, utterly, brooking no wandering movements beyond their embrace.  Even Will’s reach for the bedside lamp wasn’t permitted, his hand caught and pinned with a low growl to the mattress.  Will felt the vibration of it on his tongue as they kissed, the hot, stripped wire feeling of it running straight down his spine and into his cock.  The light was forgotten. 

Hannibal’s kisses were predatory, drugging, so incessant Will couldn’t even get Hannibal’s sweater off him until Will groaned with such frustration Hannibal took pity on him.  By then, his nails had raked up Hannibal’s back enough times trying to get the damn thing off that he’d left a myriad of lines, raised welts he could easily feel beneath his fingers as his touch gentled.  They radiated heat. 

When he finally pulled himself away from Will’s mouth, Hannibal dragged down his chest with single minded focus, each nip or open mouthed kiss painfully brief until he’d gone far enough to be cradled between thighs Will had already spread.  If Hannibal had been in the mood to tease him, he’d have sucked at the inside of those thighs first, buried his head further and started to lick Will open. 

There was no tease to this.  This was quick, but not from any desperate, raw, fumbling.  Hannibal took his cock down with possessive deliberation, a strange, thrilling edge of something like violence in the way he swallowed forcefully as the head of Will’s cock nudged at the back of his throat.  No one had ever done this for him but Hannibal, not _this_.  Will had never been one to brag on his own size but even if he had been, he’d have admitted that in certain things, it was almost a disadvantage.  A girl he’d known in college had tried to deep throat him and been so needlessly ashamed of her failure she hadn’t even finished; Molly had merely told him in no uncertain terms but with a smile that it wouldn’t be happening, but he’d get off on it anyway.  He had, of course he had, but even her best efforts had been nothing like what Hannibal offered. 

Not only could Hannibal swallow him down until Will closed his throat, he did it with decadence, moaning on each drawback, the muscles in his back bunching alluringly with each roll of his hips to rut his cock against the mattress.  He’d maintain eye contact with Will for as long as Will could hold it, such lust and adoration in those gorgeous, flecked eyes that Will inevitably broke first, his eyes fluttering shut as he turned his head to bite at the pillow, the sheets, his own hand. 

Sometimes Will fucked into his mouth as he pleased, but this time Hannibal held his hips pinned hard enough Will was sure it would bruise, and Will let him.  He needed it, tangible proof of the desperate arch of Will’s back, the control it gave him to quicken his rough pace at Will’s ragged cry of _fuck, Hannibal, please_.

He was quite fond of being in a position to answer Will’s desires, and Will was happy to let him be.  In this, they had already begun weeks ago to level into a marvelous equilibrium of give and take.  Right from the start, they had taken to each other’s bodies with shocking ease…or, not so shocking, perhaps, given all the other ways they’d already merged.  Will had been surprised; Hannibal hadn’t.  He had known they would fit in this as they did everywhere else, if only Will conceded to let it happen. 

Will was moaning when he came, low, desperate sounds cut with harsh breaths, made all the more filthy with the backdrop of the wet slide of Hannibal’s mouth.  As always, he never missed a drop—anything that escaped his mouth was chased down and suckled back in with ruthless efficiency until he was certain nothing he’d milked out of Will had been wasted.  Only then did he let his forehead rest beneath the scar on Will’s belly, panting against his oversensitized, twitching cock.   There was triumph in the tired arch of his neck, the shudder in his breath.  He was utterly pleased with himself, and already close—Will could feel it, confirmed it when all it took was the murmur of Hannibal’s name and the hook of his leg around his back to make him moan. 

Will buried one hand in Hannibal’s hair, arched out with the other to try and snag the lube from the nightstand.  An entire wordless conversation followed in Hannibal’s move to intercept him, the twist of Will’s shoulders as he reached harder, the subtle shake of Hannibal’s head.  Only when Will kissed his temple in a silent request for compromise did Hannibal relent, settled for keeping his hand off his cock for the moment and thrusting against Will’s hip instead, his impatient mouth roving across the slope of Will’s shoulder. 

As much as he’d have liked to have Hannibal inside him, Will understood his vague protests completely—he was too close to make it last, and Will was too tired to get it up again.  He was never overly eager to fuck Will if the act lacked the incentive of being able to make him come.  Still, there was intimacy to the act that Will craved, more than he’d get taking Hannibal in his hand. 

Will pressed the bottle into Hannibal’s hand and they shifted in each other’s arms with a particular kind of lovers ease that made Will’s chest go tight, already contorting himself so they could kiss the second his back pressed to Hannibal’s chest.  His hand anchored in Hannibal’s hair, grip tightening at the slick sound of Hannibal wetting his cock.  His thighs tensed in anticipation, and at the slide of Hannibal’s cock between them the moan that spilled from his chest was almost as rich as if Hannibal were taking him properly.  The logistics were altered, but the intent was the same.  With Will’s empathy, intent was enough.  Even if it hadn’t been, he’d had time enough, now, to learn what got Hannibal off.  The list was long, but Will’s pleasure topped it, every time. 

Hannibal bit down on Will’s neck as he came.  Between his teeth, in the stroke of his tongue, Will could feel the shadow of his name. 

*****

The woods were full of eyes.  They glittered, red and black and white and green, some flickering, some blurred.  They were high, and low, accompanied jagged growls, the snap of twigs.  The things that stalked beyond the edges of the meager clearing Will stretched out in were beyond count.

He paid them no heed. 

At his back, the warmth of the stag pressed like the heat of the sun, steady and encompassing.  The stag was vulnerable on the ground like he was, but Will’s body curved in front of him, sheltering the graceful curve of his throat.  After a last look at their surroundings, the stag lowered his head, his great muzzle covering Will’s pulse the way Will covered his.  The blast of his breath against Will’s chin was heavy, damp.  Will reached back to rake his fingers through ruffled feathers, felt them settle out of disarray under his touch. 

Beyond the treeline, something screeched, haunting and feral. 

Will closed his eyes.

 


End file.
